Monday, February 23, 2015

Disney Dream.....3 Night Cruise....for Valentine's...does it get any better???

Of all days...on Friday 13th...we headed to Port Canaveral to board the ship....I was like a kid I was so excited. I've been wanting to go on a Disney Cruise for a long time. This Valentine weekend was just perfect. Dan and Cheryl, and Greg and Brenda were going too...we were going to have a blast.

It was about a 1.5hr drive from where we were staying....here's our first glimpse as we cross the bridge.


It was a chilly FL morning, but we dropped our bags at the curb and parked. Then we proceeded into the big checkin building...but I got few more pics as we got closer.


The line moved fairly quickly and we were checked in, in no time. We had our "card to the world" card and we were ready to go...


 Our friends were waiting on us to take the Mickey picture...




Our whole gang...Greg, Dan, me, Mickey, Cheryl, Denny, Brenda....Disney here we come!!

Loved Mickey and Goofy greeting everyone...and the ship model was just too cool.



On the back side it even had inside ship details...leave it to Disney...details..details...details...


We were boarding #10....we waited what seemed like a long time, but was probably only about 30-45min...then it was out turn...They announced your party as you boarded and they applauded...how cool


The chandelier on deck 3 as we go on was gorgeous...I bet there are some hidden Mickey's in there.

We were all ready for lunch...so up to deck 11 to Cabanas for an amazing buffet. I enjoyed stone crab, shrimp, soup, cheeses, deli meats, and chocolate moussee ...delish. The others had carved beef, salad, pasta, pizza, salad, fruit, ice cream..you name it we could have had it. After lunch it was time to check out our cabins and drop the junk we'd been carrying. We had an amazing cabin...it was a fantail corner cabin deck 7. We had a HUGE room...and our balcony wrapped around the side of the ship....oh yeah, this was going to be amazing. We asked for 2 robes, they were brought right away and we were set!!! 



 Our bath was great...this was technically a handicap room...we hadn't ask for that, but we were assigned it, and it was going to be very nice. We booked a specific category and waited to be assigned the best of what was left...we did very good.


Yep...this balcony was as big as it looks........WOW.


That building way out there is the VAB at Kennedy Space...just last Dec we'd been there and had seen a Carnival ship in port...today we were on the ship and could se the VAB...cool.


This is the bridge we were on when we first got a glimpse of the ship...now we're on the ship looking back at the bridge.


We went to a Port and shopping chat...and then it was time for the Life Boat Drill...We were Muster station M.....for Mickey!!


This didn't take long then we headed back to the cabin to find the others. We mis-communictaed a bit so Denny and I went up to Deck 11 to see the Sail Away Party...we missed a good bit, but it looked really cute. See that big screen...they showed movies on it during the weekend.




We grabbed a drink and just enjoyed...it was cool watching us leave port...



Our Pilot boat.......

Canaveral is a HUGE port, there was only one other ship in port....way across the water.


Eventually we found the others and we drank and chatted a while...then it was time to go see our first show... The Golden Mickey's...it was, as you might expect, in fantastic Disney style. Then we found our way to Animator's Palate..our first night of dining...




Even the backs of the chairs oozzzeee Mickey!!!


And the coolest part ...CRUSH...he came alive and interacted with the everyone..



LOVE...LOVE....LOVE CRUSH!!!! He entertained us all during dinner....

Dinner was delish....filet mignon....and finally dessert.


Oh my it had been the best Friday 13th...EVER!!! We were all done, so off to bed we went with plans to meet in the morning.

Tomorrow...Nassau...a little shopping and a special dinner at Remy!!!








Thursday, February 19, 2015

More fun and heading to Disney

We had so much fun when Mom was here....we went to 3 shows at the Van Wezel, Hallie and Al came over from Orlando area for a 2 night visit, we went to a cool place to view manatees, awe even cooked a frozen turkey. We went to see music on Main Street in Lakewood Ranch one Saturday...there were many local places that had booths, this was a booth from Mote Marine...

This is an African lizard....yuck....they also had a snack and a huge aquarium

On bothe ends of the street were stages with different things going on all the time...this was an adult dance class ...they did several things and were very good.



This little boy and his Mother were adorable together, he did a GREAT job.




This Barbershop Quartet was amazing...we really enjoyed just sitting and listening.

On the other stage was mostly high school perfomances....ballerinas, tap dancers, singing...very nice.




It was loads of fun and the weather was perfect....there's always things happening during our winter months.
Dinner was out with friends for sushi....YUM.

On Mom's last Sunday here we went to Ophelia's on the Bay for brunch....crab legs, prime rib and mimosa's sitting on the water, does it get any better??


then we chilled on the beach for a few hours....we needed to after such a big meal.
Then we headed home to showers and some weekly leftovers for dinner if anybody was hungry.
We had one last show to attend the Music of  Duke Ellington....was very good.

Now it was time to head over to Disney...our nephew Chad was at Disney with his middle school band and was going to be playing at downtown Disney. We headed over the day before to be sure we were there and we had a great dinner at a Cajun Saefood place...the gumbo and oysters were delish.

The next morning we headed to downtown for his performance...they did a great job. Got a few shots of him walking in and on stage before the performance started.




Once the performance started the music stand hid him...bummer

A nice view of all of them....


He leaned forward in between songs...but that's about all I could get.

Somehow I messed up getting pics when they filted out, but was fun to have been there and to see him.
He headed off to EPCOT and we stayed and shopped. Had some great soup at the Earl of Sandwich and just took it slow. It was a little cool, but actually was perfect weather again. Just love living in south Florida.
We had dinner at a new place in downtown....BBQ and cajun....BBQ pork for Mom and Denny, shrimp and grits for me. Time to head back to the condo...Mom had to fly back to ATL and we were boarding the Disney Dream ship for a 3 nite cruise.....I was so excited I'm surprised I could sleep....next post.....CRUISE!!!!

Thanks for coming down and spending time with us Mom...we had a ball!!